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AWS Lake Formation vs Amazon Redshift comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 4, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Redshift
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (5th), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (8th)
AWS Lake Formation
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Amazon Redshift is 7.2%, up from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 4.9%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
AWS Lake Formation4.9%
Amazon Redshift7.2%
Other87.9%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

PJ
Data Analytics, Ai & Automation Lead at a venture capital & private equity firm with 10,001+ employees
Performance optimization and scaling adaptations enable efficient data management
Amazon Redshift does not work alone and requires integration with other AWS tools like S3 and Glue for a complete ecosystem. They should bring the entire ETL data management process into Amazon Redshift. Either they should move Amazon Redshift under Glue, or Glue should be brought under Amazon Redshift. The initial setup could also be improved, particularly in terms of sizing, as it requires trial and error to get right.
Ciro Baldim Guerra - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Analytics Engineer at Itau Unibanco S.A.
Has improved data governance by enabling clear ownership and structured access across teams
In my company, Itaú, we don't utilize all AWS offerings due to rigorous security measures. We operate approximately six to eight months behind other available services. I'm uncertain if gaps exist because of this limitation, though the system functions effectively for us. AWS Lake Formation offers column-level access control for databases, but we haven't implemented this feature either because it hasn't been approved by our compliance, governance, or security areas. In our current setup, everyone from my business unit uses the same consumer account. When access is requested for a table, everyone using that business unit account receives access. This could present a security concern, though it benefits new team members who automatically receive all necessary access permissions. However, I struggle to identify specific improvements needed in AWS Lake Formation.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is its scalability."
"The solution is easy to set up and use."
"Redshift is a major service of Amazon and is very scalable. It enables faster recalculations and data management, helping to retrieve data quickly."
"This service can merge and integrate well with all databases."
"With the APIs that are available, it can be easily integrated with other tools."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Easy to build out our snowflake design and load data."
"Though Amazon Redshift is good, it depends on what kind of business you're trying to do, what type of analytics you need, and how much data you have."
"The integration of AWS Lake Formation with the IAM for authentication and authorization is very good; I didn't have any problems in the setup and thought it was simple."
"We use AWS Lake Formation typically for the data warehouse."
"The solution is quite good at handling analytics. It's done a good job at helping us centralize them."
"The main benefits that I have seen from using AWS Lake Formation are related to FinOps because you have control of your data and can track your costs since AWS Lake Formation is integrated into a unique platform, which is AWS Cloud Service."
"The most important advantage in using AWS Lake Formation is its ability to connect the data lake to the other technologies in AWS. This is what I advise my clients."
"AWS Lake Formation works hand in hand with other products."
"We have observed measurable benefits in terms of cost savings, time savings, resource savings, and efficiency improvements in our workflows."
"There is no doubt that this place exceeded my expectations with its incredible ambiance, attentive service, and mouthwatering menu."
 

Cons

"Query compilation time needs a lot of improvement for cases where you are generating queries dynamically."
"The technical support should be better in terms of their knowledge, and they should be more customer-friendly."
"It would be nice if we could turn off an instance. However, it would retain the instance in history, thus allowing us to restart without beginning from scratch."
"Amazon Redshift does not have the capability to dynamically increase the VM file."
"Infinite storage is available in Snowflake and is not available in Redshift."
"Improvement in the immediate response and the process of getting into a call could be helpful."
"In the next release, a pivot function would be a big help. It could save a lot of time creating a query or process to handle operations."
"The solution is unable to work fast."
"The initial onboarding process is challenging because creating a plan takes a month to a month and a half to build out."
"You need to have data experience to use the product."
"In our current setup, everyone from my business unit uses the same consumer account. When access is requested for a table, everyone using that business unit account receives access. This could present a security concern, though it benefits new team members who automatically receive all necessary access permissions."
"It falls short when it comes to more granular access control, such as cell-level or row-level entitlements which is a significant drawback for organizations that require precise control over who can access specific rows of data."
"If I could improve AWS Lake Formation, I would add more integrations with SageMaker."
"In our current setup, everyone from my business unit uses the same consumer account. When access is requested for a table, everyone using that business unit account receives access. This could present a security concern, though it benefits new team members who automatically receive all necessary access permissions."
"Despite following official documentation, configuration problems persisted, requiring weeks of support from multiple AWS engineers to resolve."
"I think AWS Lake Formation could improve by enforcing the least privilege by design, moving from ad hoc grants to role-based access controls."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is quite expensive."
"Redshift is very cost effective for a cloud based solution if you need to scale it a lot. For smaller data sizes, I would think about using other products."
"If you want a fixed price, an to not worry about every query, but you need to manage your nodes personally, use Redshift."
"It's not very pricey compared to other tools. I would rate the price as 5 out of 10."
"The solution has very competitive pricing."
"For Amazon Redshift, we pay around INR 60,000 annually. The cost factor also depends on the number of existing customers."
"Amazon Redshift is an expensive solution. Larger organizations can afford this solution, but smaller businesses would struggle to afford it."
"The price of Amazon Redshift is reasonable because it depends on the usage that you use and for DWH for the long term."
"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Transportation Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...
What do you like most about Amazon Redshift?
The tool's most valuable feature is its parallel processing capability. It can handle massive amounts of data, even when pushing hundreds of terabytes, and its scaling capabilities are good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Lake Formation?
I don't understand much about the pricing of AWS Lake Formation, but I know how to search for the cost of Glue jobs, and I use the calculator in Amazon. I use a tool to preview the cost based on th...
What needs improvement with AWS Lake Formation?
Regarding areas of AWS Lake Formation that could be improved or enhanced, I prefer not to answer, mainly because I do not believe that I would be the most valuable person to ask, as I have not used...
What is your primary use case for AWS Lake Formation?
My usual use cases for AWS Lake Formation involved securing and governing the data resources that we configured in AWS, but we did not use the analytics or machine learning capabilities specificall...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Liberty Mutual Insurance, 4Cite Marketing, BrandVerity, DNA Plc, Sirocco Systems, Gainsight, Blue 449
bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Lake Formation vs. Amazon Redshift and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,928 professionals have used our research since 2012.